Garmin nuvi 550 review

The Garmin nuvi 550 represents Garmin’s foray into the “crossover” GPS market, aiming for a device that functions well whether used for driving, hiking, cycling or boating.

UPDATE:Here’s a post I did about dual-use GPS, and how well they work for both road and trail.

The 3.5″ touch-screen nuvi 550 comes pre-loaded with highway maps of the entire U.S. and Canada. The other model in this series, the nuvi 500, has both topo and highway maps, but limits coverage to the the 48 contiguous United States, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Neither unit has text-to-speech, so you’ll hear “drive one-half mile, then turn left” instead of “drive one-half mile, then turn left on Main Street.”

There are also a couple of features found on the nuvi 550 that are not present on the 2×5 series nuvis — multi-destination routing and a removable, li-ion battery rated at up to 8 hours.

I’ve posted a hands-on review of the nuvi 500, so rather than repeat myself, I’m going to refer you there for lots of screenshots and details on the other features and performance of the nuvi 500 series.